3 FILMS BY ROBERTO ROSSELLINI STARRING INGRID BERGMAN
(1950-1954, Blu-ray released September 24, 2013 – MSRP $99.95)
THE FILM:
- “In the late 1940s, the incandescent Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) found herself so moved by the revolutionary neorealist films of Roberto Rossellini (Rome Open City) that she sent the director a letter, introducing herself and offering her talents. The resulting collaboration produced a series of films that are works of both sociopolitical concern and metaphysical melodrama, each starring Bergman as a woman experiencing physical dislocation and psychic torment in postwar Italy. It also famously led to a scandalous affair and eventual marriage between filmmaker and star, and the focus on their personal lives in the press unfortunately overshadowed the extraordinary films they made together. Stromboli, Europe ’51, and Journey to Italy are intensely personal portraits that reveal the director at his most emotional and the glamorous actor at her most anguished, and that capture them and the world around them in transition.
STROMBOLI
- The first collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman is a devastating portrait of a woman’s existential crisis, set against the beautiful and forbidding backdrop of a volcanic island. After World War II, a Lithuanian refugee (Bergman) marries a simple Italian fisherman (Mario Vitale) she meets in a prisoner of war camp and accompanies him back to his isolated village on an island off the coast of Sicily. Cut off from the world, she finds herself crumbling emotionally, but she is destined for a dramatic epiphany. Balancing the director’s trademark neorealism (exemplified here in a remarkable depiction of the fishermen’s lives and work) with deeply felt melodrama, Stromboli is a revelation.
EUROPE ’51
- Ingrid Bergman plays a wealthy, self-absorbed socialite in Rome racked by guilt over the shocking death of her young son. As a way of dealing with her grief and finding meaning in her life, she decides to devote her time and money to the city’s poor and sick. Her newfound, single-minded activism leads to conflicts with her husband and questions about her sanity. The intense, often unfairly overlooked Europe ’51 was, according to Rossellini, a retelling of his own The Flowers of St. Francis from a female perspective. This unabashedly political but sensitively conducted investigation of modern sainthood was the director’s favorite of his films.
JOURNEY TO ITALY
- Among the most influential dramatic works of the postwar era, Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy charts the declining marriage of a couple (Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders) from England while on a trip in the countryside near Naples. More than just an anatomy of a relationship, Rossellini’s masterpiece is a heartrending work of emotion and spirituality. Considered a predecessor to the existentialist films of Michelangelo Antonioni; hailed as a groundbreaking modernist work by the legendary film journal Cahiers du cinéma; and named by director Martin Scorsese as one of his favorite films, Journey to Italy is a breathtaking cinematic benchmark.”
REVIEW:
This box set is going to be on every “Best Of 2013” home video list this year, mark my words. While not technically “complete” (there’s apparently one cut of Stromboli and two of Europe ’51 not included) this is more than film fans could ever hope for when it comes to this trio of rarely seen cinematic gems.
Rossellini and Bergman make a perfect pair. I can’t speak to what they were like together in real life, of course, but on screen, the combination of his language and her performance is pure poetry. I can see how they ended up in a relationship. Rossellini’s storytelling is impeccable and his incisive representations of love and relationships realistic and grounded. And that material is a blessing to an actor like Bergman, who simply lights up the screen in these films, particularly in her incredible transformation through Europe ’51, a film that’s something of a reworking of Rossellini’s own The Flowers of St. Francis. All three films in this set are progressive and modern. Don’t let the fact that they were made 60-years ago dissuade you from watching.
Where the films are nothing alike, however, is in their Blu-ray presentations. And that’s rather understandable given their age and the likely uneven care the source material has been afforded over the years. Journey to Italy looks the best of the three films. Remarkable even, boasting extraordinary depth and contrast. The Italian-language Europa ’51 is probably in the worst shape, with its English-language counterpart Europe ’51 close behind. Both show signs of damage, the Italian version looking softer and less stable. Stromboli and the Italian-language Stromboli terra di Dio, the oldest of the three films, both offer pleasing transfers, with Stromboli terra di Dio looking slightly brighter. All films look very film-like with nary a hint of untoward digital manipulation.
Audio is lossless mono on every film, whether Italian or English language. Journey to Italy offers the greatest dynamic range and has clearly required the least amount of stabilization. The other films show signs of repair but sound across the board quite impressive, considering their age and circumstance.
All right, let’s talk about bonus goodies. This set features nearly seven hours of bonus material. Eight and a half, if you count the commentary track on Journey to Italy. Wow. I’m at a loss for words. I just want to thank Criterion, on behalf of every film fan out there, for going to such incredible lengths to gather and create this stunning collection of supplementary material. They don’t need to do it, you know. They could just release the three films and call it a day. But to go so far as to get the rights to such film treasures as the feature-length archival documentaries Rossellini Through His Own Eyes and Ingrid Bergman Remembered, the old family home movies from Rossellini’s niece, G. Fiorella Mariani, included in the interview with her and Guy Maddin‘s My Dad is 100 Years Old, a short film tribute to Rossellini starring his daughter Isabella Rossellini just goes so far beyond the call of duty, these guys deserve some kind of reward. I guess that reward will just come by way of my eternal allegiance to them and the seemingly unending access I give them to my wallet.
Most of the extras in the set are found on the Journey to Italy disc and on the fourth disc included in the set, dedicated to bonus stuff. The box also includes an 86-page illustrated booklet of essays, letters between Rossellini and Bergman, interviews, articles and more.
I can’t recommend this box set highly enough. If you love film, you need to own this, plain and simple.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
STROMBOLI Special Features:
- New digital film restoration of the English-language version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New, restored 2K digital film transfer of the Italian-language version, Stromboli terra di Dio, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
- New interview with film critic Adriano Aprà
- Rossellini Under the Volcano, a 1998 documentary that returns to the island of Stromboli fifty years after the making of Stromboli
- New English subtitle translation
EUROPA ’51 Special Features:
- New digital film restoration of the English-language version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New digital film restoration of the Italian-language version, Europa ’51, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
- New interview with critic Adriano Aprà
- New interview with film historian Elena Dagrada about the different versions of Europe ’51
- New interviews with Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini, daughters of Roberto Rossellini and Bergman (DVD)
- My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a 2005 short film, directed by Guy Maddin and starring Isabella Rossellini (DVD)
- New interview with Fiorella Mariani, Rossellini’s niece, featuring home movies shot by Bergman (DVD)
- The Chicken, a 1952 short film by Roberto Rossellini, starring Bergman (DVD)
- New English subtitle translation
JOURNEY TO ITALY Special Features:
- New, restored 2K digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Laura Mulvey
- New visual essays about Rossellini by scholars Tag Gallagher and James Quandt
- New interview with critic Adriano Aprà
- Ingrid Bergman Remembered, a 1996 documentary on the actor’s life, narrated by her daughter Pia Lindstrom
- A Short Visit with the Rossellini Family, a six-minute film shot on Capri while the family was there during the production of Journey to Italy
- New interviews with Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini, daughters of Roberto Rossellini and Bergman (Blu-ray)
- Rossellini Through His Own Eyes, a 1992 documentary on the filmmaker’s approach to cinema, featuring archival interviews with Rossellini and actor Ingrid Bergman (Blu-ray)
- New interview with Fiorella Mariani, Rossellini’s niece, featuring home movies shot by Bergman
- My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a 2005 short film, directed by Guy Maddin and starring Isabella Rossellini (Blu-ray)
- The Chicken, a 1952 short film by Roberto Rossellini, starring Bergman (Blu-ray)
